Friday Flush 16.Nov.2012

Watch out! Once again, it's time for a round up of all the news you never knew you needed to know!

Lifehacker challenge

The winner of this week's Macgyver challenge at Lifehacker shows how you can repurpose toilet rolls to make a bits-and-bobs holder.

Honourable mentions went to a lamp shade, candle holder, iPod dock and scarf organiser (my personal favourite).

Bubble wrap against sweat

So in the same vein of utilising products in a nifty new way, did you know that you can use bubble wrap to stop the inside of your toilet cistern from sweating? No? Me neither! I mean, who even knew that could be a problem??

Grandma did. And Grandma has the answers.

Toilet roll napkin holders

And hell, while we're at it, why the fuck not?

Stage fright

I know that sometimes people get stage fright when they go to the loo whilst someone else is in the vicinity. But the drummer from Florence & the Machine inverted the experience - he got locked in the loo and nearly didn't make it on stage. True story!

Enjoy your peekend, troops.

Friday Flush 28.Nov.08

Welcome back to The Bog Logger! I've been on a wee hiatus, but I'm back now with news, reviews, and the view from the loo.

Openings

There have been a few exciting toilet openings this week. First of all, the famed Charmin Restrooms have opened for the third year in New York. The 20 luxury toilets are serviced by tuxedoed-attendants after each use. Charmin is a toilet paper manufacturer in the US, and the toilets in Times Square have become quite a holiday tourist attraction.

We may not have tuxedoes, but in Australia we had the opening of the country's highest toilets on Mt Kosciusko, and I think they're really gorgeous.


It looks like they've used local rock to ensure the facility complements the surrounding landscape but without sacrificing function for form.

Residents in Peebles, UK, have decided to combine form and function by opting for single occupancy unisex toilets, believing that they are less likely to encourage anti-social behaviour. I'm not a huge fan of these toilets, but I do understand their purpose. The important thing for the people at Kingsmeadow is that they have adequate, clean facilities.

It seems that the people of Atlanta, USA, have not learned from the mistakes of Seattle and have decided to buy $300,000 apiece spaceship toilets. The comments on the article are generally not favourable to the idea. It makes no sense that councils continue to be fooled into buying those expensive monstrosities which intimidate all but the least reputable people. Portland, USA, has a much better toilet solution proposed.

This eco-toilet comes at a smaller price tag of $140,000, runs on solar energy and has panels which are easily and cheaply changed in case of vandalism. They are designed to be 'privacy-reduced' in order to discourage loitering.

And finally, in the UK, a Plymouth man is taking his very serious campaign for more toilets to the European Court of Human Rights. Eric Johns says that Plymouth used to have 67 toilets in 1984. Now, that number has dwindled to 31. The town of Devonport only has 1 toilet. The Court has accepted his initial submission and will hear his case next year.

Friday Flush 25/07/2008

Oooh, it's quite an international flush today, and a big one at that! So what we need is a massive toilet. A Yorkshire Water campaign to encourage people to 'do one thing differently' to conserve water is being fronted by giant toilets. I don't believe the toilets actually speak or anything, but it is a fun way to get people thinking about the fact that toilets account for one third of a household's water usage. By the way, I don't really believe that statistic. Maybe it's true in the UK, but I know that here in Australia, water saving cisterns have been standard for at least a decade. I couldn't be arsed researching this at the moment though. Would appreciate others' thoughts.

 

Another interesting statistic, is that Russians use 10 times less toilet paper than Americans and Western Europeans. Now, this statistic I do believe. The experts claim it all comes down to the old 'do ya scrunch or fold?' question. That is a poll for another time.

 

Still no bids on the infamous Seattle toilets which are up for sale on eBay at a starting price of $89,000, however Calgary and Fort Lauderdale might be interested in buying them. Not put off by Seattle's experience with the spaceship toilets, Toronto and Vancouver are moving ahead with plans to install more of the suckers. However, they might be better off buying their facilities from Vietnam where the toilets only cost $20,000 a piece - that's a massive saving!

 

Meanwhile, over in London, red Boris wants to offer free toilet facilities to all senior citizens. The idea is actually extraordinarily deceptive - it is a discriminatory Community Toilet Scheme. As Londonist points out, non-senior-people who pay £100 more for their monthly train tickets should reasonably object to being denied access to toilets because of their age.

 

 

To prove that everything strange in the world actually comes from Austria, and not the USA as many people believe, is this story about a man who was blasted off his toilet seat by hailstones. Oh. My. God. I can't even believe how much that would hurt.

 

And finally in Jamaica, a businessman has been accused of selling counterfeit toilet paper on the black market.

 

And that's the Friday flush for this week!

The Friday Flush

I have so much loo news to get through that it's not possible to comment on everything. So I introduce The Friday Flush!

 

Loo News

 

Voting for America's Best Restroom is currently open.

 

Officials in India are keeping the streets clean by offering money to people to use urinals. I'm not sure if that's awesome or stupid. I welcome suggestions.

 

Pride London has apologised after some event staff asked trans people to use a disabled toilet, apparently because they were so tall amongst all those short lesbians. Hey! Not all lesbians are short! People are more civilised in Thailand; a school in Si Sa Ket has created separate toilets for its 200 trans students.

 

A ridiculous gadget claims to 'promote better relationships' because it enables users to lift and lower the toilet seat without touching the often soiled seat. Whatever.

 

Taiwan decided flushing toilet paper down the toilet paper was okay, and then decided it wasn't, because 82 per cent of of toilets flow directly into river and waterways. Taiwan uses 340 tonnes of toilet paper a day. Better to turn that into landfill, I say.

 

Sloan Valve Company's new High Efficiency Toilet (HET) Systems have all sorts of sensor-flushy-solar-electro doovies to make your toilet super efficient. I think.

 

There's a few stories about China allegedly poshing up its toilets so that Westerners don't find them so offensive. As someone who has lived in China let me tell you that I'm very skeptical.

 

And to finish, Geri Haliwell loves talking about poo and wee. Good on you Geri.

 

Openings

In Colchester, the town centre toilets are open again, and 'the first 50 customers to use the new arty loos in Lion Walk received a commemorative loo-roll', designed by the artists. That's so awesome I can't even speak. No pic yet, but maybe soon.

The toilets are the first to be refurbished as part of Colchester Borough Council’s  Creative Conveniences project, during which a partnership of arts, street and tourism officers have worked together to improve the look, feel and function of a selection of Colchester’s public conveniences.

That's so cool it deserves its own post. Oh, man, I need more time!!

 

Staying in the UK, COLDSTREAM and Eyemouth are top of the list to have their public toilets refurbished and also to get a town attendant each, responsible for cleaning the toilets and other general duties around the town. I'm such a fan of toilet attendants. It's a really important job, and it also keeps toilets human - something I advocate strongly.

Closings

For every toilet that opens, dozens are closed. Angry Burnham-On-Sea town councillors this week threatened to withdraw £35,000 of funding for the district council in protest at the authority's decision to shut down and sell the town's seafront toilets. And in Borehamwood, the Community Toilet Scheme proposed 18 months ago is still not off the ground.

Wee and wash: what next?

In this eco-conscious world o' ours, it's great to see some innovation in the bathroom. A real step up from the brick in the cistern.

That's right. It's a washing machine. On a toilet.

Of course, there are many (more sensible) eco-friendly toilet solutions.

This sexy number from Matsushita, made from organic glass

claims to be environmentally friendly as it features the industry's lowest water usage.

Or the Aqus system, which captures water from the bathroom sink to be re-used as flushing water.

And in St David's, Pembrokeshire, UK, a city trying to become the world's first carbon-neutral city, rainwater is harvested to service the public toilets.

But as regular readers will know (and I sincerely hope that you're all regular) one of the things I care most about is the provision of adequate toilets, particularly in developing countries. So I was pleased to see this week that Pump Aid co-founder Ian Thorpe (not the swimmer) is a finalist in the St Andrew's Prize for the Environment for his Elephant Toilet.

Costing just £20 each to build, the toilets use discarded objects such as plastic bottles and empty ballpoint pens in their construction. The 'elephant' toilet name comes from the two ear shapes where the user puts his or her feet and the trunk which separates liquid waste from solid.

http://www.knaresboroughpost.co.uk/harrogate-news/Innovative-toilet-design-is-no.4056293.jp

The photo comes from Christine Collier's Malawi diary.

...at one point, he squatted down on a toilet base not yet fitted in situ, to demonstrate how it works and a huge howl of children's laughter errupted at the obviously recognisable stance ... toilet humour crosses all cultural boundaries.

It sure does, Christine.

BTW, how good a name is Matsushita for a toilet company!?

Low income loo bonus

Low income residents in Seattle can look forward to making some real savings with the launch of a scheme by Seattle Public Utilities to provide free efficient toilets.

Read the story here

The toilets can save more than $100 a year in bills.

Back when I was a really poor student, my local council had a similar initiative. A very friendly man came around to my dodgy flat and gave me two free energy-efficient lightbulbs, changed my shower head to a water-efficient model and even checked to see how efficient my toilet was. It wasn't very, so he put some sort of brick in it to lessen the amount of water it used.

I don't know if I had any very noticeable reductions in my bills, but it was a great idea. The best thing was, it was free. I could never have afforded to make those sorts of money saving changes. It's the same old lament: you need money to save money.